The owner of the plane that crashed in the English Channel in 2019, killing Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala, has revealed that she had ordered the plane’s operator to not
use the pilot. The footballer was travelling in a single engine Piper Malibu
aircraft from Nantes in France to Wales in order to join the Premier League club Cardiff
City.

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David Henderson, the
plane’s operator, is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court in Wales for allegedly
endangering the plane’s safety consequently putting the life of the passenger
at risk. He has denied the charge.

It has come to light
that the pilot of the plane, 59-year-old David Ibbotson, was incompetent in bad
weather and unqualified to fly at night. Furthermore, Martin Goudie went on to
tell the jury that that Ibbotson did not even posses a commercial pilot’s
license.

In a hearing in
October 2020, the court was told that Ibbotson’s license had expired on 2018
but that did not stop Henderson from appointing him.

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As per the Guardian,
Goudie said, “Mr Henderson acted
either negligently or recklessly in a manner that was likely to endanger [the
plane] and those on it. He ignored certain requirements when it suited him and
his business interests.”

Kay Feely, the owner, told the
jury that she bought the plane upon Henderson’s advice and he was the man responsible
for operating it and choosing the pilots. She even told the operator to not use
Ibbotson again when the Civil Aviation Authority alerted her of two
infringements made by the pilot.

Henderson who hails
from Hotham, East Riding of Yorkshire had previously plead guilty to trying to
arrange a flight for a passenger without permission or authorisation.

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The air incident
investigators concluded in March 2020 that the pilot whose body has still not
been recovered lost control as he flew too fast to try and avoid bad weather.
Ibbotson was not licensed to fly the plane.

Sala’s body was
recovered on 7th January and post mortem revealed that the
footballer died of ‘head and trunk injuries’ sustained due to the crash.